I fumble with the lock, and when the door swings open, he fills the frame like something carved from the blizzard itself—coat dusted in snow, hair damp and mussed, breath coming out in clouds. He’s the last person I should want to see. He’s the only person I want to see.
“Ash?” I squeak. My voice cracks on his name. He stares at me for a beat. Not my face. My headlamp. My blanket. My fuzzy socks with tiny embroidered reindeer. His jaw flexes so hard I’m shocked the bones don’t snap.
“What the hell are you wearing?” he finally mutters.
“It’s called survival.”
“It’s called dangerous.”
I blink. “My socks are not dangerous.”
“They’re killing me.”
Heat slams into my cheeks. He shakes snow from his jacket as he steps inside, shutting the door behind him. The cabin plunges into semi-darkness again, lit only by my headlamp. He looks around, assessing everything in seconds—old chimney, powerless heater, drafty window seams.
“Power’s completely out,” he says, voice clipped. “Temperature dropped ten degrees in the last hour. You can’t stay here.”
“I can manage?—”
“No.” The word lands like a command.
I bristle. “Ash?—”
“You’re not staying here alone, Lucy.”
“I’ve handled power outages before.”
“Not on a mountain. Not in a poorly insulated rental. Not in a blizzard with wind gusts hitting sixty.”
“I can use the fireplace.”
“It’s not safe.” His voice tightens. “The chimney’s cracked. I told you that on your first day here, remember?”
I do remember. I also remember thinking he was a bossy giant who needed a hobby.
He steps closer. Too close.
The headlamp light catches the edge of his jaw, the dark sweep of his lashes, the melt of snow on his shoulders. He looks huge in the tiny entryway—towering, bracing one hand on the beam above him like he needs something to keep from touching me.
“Why are you here?” I whisper.
His eyes lock onto mine. The answer is immediate. “Because I heard the power went out.”
“That’s… not a reason.”
“It is to me.”
My breath stutters. He studies me, headlamp glow flickering across his features like firelight. There’s something in his expression—hard, fierce, tense as a pulled wire.
“You’re freezing,” he says.
“No, I’m?—”
He touches my cheek with the back of his knuckles.
I flinch. Not because it hurts.
Because it doesn’t. Because it feels like heat punching straight through my skin. He pulls back like he didn’t mean to touch me at all.
